Process of making mantles.



0. WIBDERHOLD.

PROCESS OF MAKING MANTLES. APPLIUATION FILED MAB. 6, 1905.

FIG. 2.

BLEA CHED I Fla. 3.

lMPREG/VA TED 'INVENTOR:

r I 0 WITNESSES:

PATENTED JAN. 30, 1906.

' n By Attorneys,

"e rr stars OSCAR WIEDERHOLD, OF JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY.

PROCESS OF MAKING WINTLES.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented J' an. 30, 1906.

Application filed March 6, 1906. Serial No. 248,680.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, OSCAR WInnnRHoLn, a citizen of the United States, residingin J ersey City, in the county of Hudson and State of New Jersey, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes of Making Mantles, of which the following is a specification. l

Mantles for incandescent gas-burners are made by knitting or otherwise working cotton or other textile material into the desired form and impregnating the same with the refractory material which becomes incandescent under the heat of the flame of the burner. The refractory materials whose incandescence produces the light areusually thorium and cerium. The photometric value of themantle depends largely on the purity of the incandescing substance or substances. Considerable reduction of efficiency is occasioned by the presence of iron or other impurities.

The object of this invention is to provide a process of making the mantles which shall eliminate to a greater extent than has been possible by previous processes impurities which reduce the efliciency of the mantle. At the same time the improved process is cheaper than processesheretofore used in the manufacture of good mantles. It is generally understood that at least a considerable percent-- age of the iron or other impurities in the mantles is present in the cotton, in which it is taken up in minute quantities from the soil. It has been customary, therefore, to bleach the crude spun cotton, first boiling it in an alkaline solution in order to remove the oily substances and facilitate the bleachingoperation. It was then bleached in loose skeins in chlorid of lime or any one of various other well-known bleaching agents titer which it was spooled, and then knitted into the usually tubular form ofthe mantle. In the spooling and knitting machines it isfound that the cotton receives further impurities by Way of minute quantities of iron from the needles and dirt from the oils of the machines. It has been necessary, therefore, to wash the knitted material in acid followed by an ammonia solution or by boiling in distilled water or in other ways to remove these impurities before the material was dried and dipped in or otherwise impregnated with the usual solution of nitrate of thorium and cerium.

According to this invention a great improvem nt is effected by first knitting or otherwise forming the crude cotton or other texsequently bleaching it.

An example of the process in detail is as follows: The crude spun cotton is knitted into the desired form, washed in alkali to remove the oily matters, and bleached. It is then.

thoroughly washed to bodily remove the impurities, which were oxidized but not removed by the bleaching operation, after which it is dried and impregnated with the incandescing material. The new process eliminates to a marked degree impurities which seriously interfere with the light-giving powerof mantles made by the old process. For example, other considerations being exactly the same, I have found that the number of seconds that is, mantles below the commercial standard-were from eight per cent. to twenty per cent. when made by the old process and are only from one-half to one per cent. when made by the new process, using the same photometric standard. Furthermore, the mantles made by the new process are ofmuch more uniform quality than those made by the old process.

Irregularities in the product have heretofore been very wide even where the manufacture has been conducted with great care, and this irregularity has generally been ascribed to the inability to secure cotton from the same localities, it being well understood that cotton from different parts of the country produces mantles of quite different degrees of eiiiciency. The new process by more thoroughly eliminating the impurities brings all the mantles up to nearly a uniform standard. The par ticular value of performing the bleaching operation after the knitting of the material is believed to lie chiefly in the better elimination of the impurities introduced by the knitting operation and in the greater facility of handling, and consequently greater efficiency of bleaching operations upon a loosely-knitted tube as compared withloose skeins of thread.

tile material into the desired shape and sub- The accompanying drawings illustrate a process embodying the lnventlon, Figure 1 representing a tube knitted of unbleached e0t-' ton, Fig. 2 the same tube bleached, and Fig. 3 the bleached tube impregnated and ready for the usual burning.

Though I have described with great par- Licularity of detail a certain specific process embodying the invention, yet it is not to be understood that the invention is limited to the specific process described. Various modifications thereof may be made by those skilled in the art without departure from the invention.

What I claim is---- 1. The herein-described process of produc ing textile fabric for incandescent mantles, which consists in forming the same from raw threads containing impurities detrimental to the production of perfect impregnation, but beneficial to the formation of the fabric, then removing the impurities by subjecting the fabric to a suitable reagent, and removing the reagent together with the impurities, and then impregnating with incandescing material.

2. The herein-described process of producing textile fabric for incandescent mantles,

sum?

which consists in forming the same from raw threads containing impurities detrimental to the production of perfect impregnation, but beneficial to the formation of the fabric, tlien removing the impurities by subjecting the fabric to a suitable bleaching reagent, and removing the bleaching reagent together with the impurities, and then impregnating with incandescing material.

3. The herein-described process of producing textile fabric for incandescent mantles, which consists in forming the same from threads containing impurities detrimental to the production of perfect impregnation, but beneficial to the formation of the fabric, then removing the: impurities by subjecting the fabric to a suitable reagent, and removing the reagent together with the impurities, and then impregnating with incandescing material.

q In witness whereof I have hereunto signed my name in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

OSCAR WIEDERHOLD. Witnesses:

DOMINGO A. UsINA, FRED WHITE. 

